Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism Publishes 'Infectious Disease Response Guide' Specialized for Performance Venues

[Asia Economy Reporter Donghyun Choi] The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism announced on the 31st that it has developed the "Guide for Infectious Disease Response in Performance Venues" in collaboration with the Performance Venue Safety Support Center to strengthen the infectious disease response capabilities of performance venues, which are representative multi-use cultural facilities.

Over the past 1 year and 8 months, COVID-19 infections between actors and audiences, as well as among audience members, have rarely occurred within performance venues, leading to the evaluation that performance venues are relatively safe facilities against infectious diseases. However, the need to develop a guide to help performance venue operators systematically establish infectious disease response plans and effectively cope with infectious diseases at performance sites has been continuously raised.

Accordingly, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism reviewed domestic and international research within the framework of COVID-19 social distancing, and through field and expert consultations, developed a field-oriented guide considering the characteristics of performance venues.

This guide is divided into "Medium to Large Performance Venues" and "Small Performance Venues," considering the differences in creation/production and viewing characteristics by venue size. It includes ▲ crisis management measures according to crisis alert levels ▲ measures for blocking infectious disease transmission in performance venues (from the perspectives of audiences, rental organizations, and venue staff) ▲ various forms and reference materials that can be used in case of infectious disease occurrence.

In particular, the guide focuses on strengthening the preemptive response capabilities of performance venues by presenting a risk assessment model tailored to the characteristics of performance venues. Each venue can use the risk assessment model to evaluate risks in advance from various aspects such as spatial characteristics of the venue, characteristics of rental organizations, and viewing characteristics, and prepare response measures in advance for vulnerable areas.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism plans to distribute the guide to performance venues at all levels in cooperation with the Safety Support Center and hold non-face-to-face briefing sessions to effectively promote the guide at performance sites. Additionally, the ministry plans to share the achievements of the guide development internationally at the "2021 International Symposium on Performance Safety," which includes safety experts from the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, and other countries.

The guide can be accessed on the websites of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Performance Venue Safety Support Center.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.